


Everything In Its Own Time

by ChristenKimbell



Category: Endless Summer (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, F/M, Five Stages of Grief, Grief/Mourning, Jake goes a little wild for a while, One Night Stands, Swearing, for real though Jake swears a lot, some southern slang, thoughts on time and grief and how they interlock, you ever known military who wasn't rough around the edges?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22905763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChristenKimbell/pseuds/ChristenKimbell
Summary: (Vaanu Ending) Just before rejoining Vaanu, Princess leaves an additional message meant for Jake alone, explaining her choice and telling him to accept it.It takes him five years to figure out how.
Relationships: Jake McKenzie/Main Character (Endless Summer), Mike Darwin & Jake McKenzie
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43





	Everything In Its Own Time

**Author's Note:**

> This is a cleaned up version of what's posted to ff.net. 
> 
> The Vaanu ending breaks your heart but leaves some questions. I wanted a story that preserved the player's potential choice to reunite with Vaanu while still acknowledging the aftermath that Jake (far more than anyone) is left to deal with.

There are many things that I

Would like to say to you

But I don't know how

I said maybe

You're gonna be the one that saves me

-"Wonderwall," Oasis 

* * *

It was over.

The Coast Guard cutter had found the La Huerta survivors waiting on the warm sand below the smoking towers of the Celestial. Now it bore them home, chopping and rocking through the waves.

Diego, Quinn, Sean, Grace, Michelle, Estela, Aleister, Craig, Raj and Zahra - the La Huerta survivors - all sat in a long line on the seats at the front of the cutter. They were mostly quiet, just needing and wanting to be together. Rourke was there too, belowdecks, trying as always to recover some small grain of ambition from the sand slipping through his fingers. They'd had to leave Varyyn behind - Diego swearing a tearful vow that he'd return the minute he could.

So all that remained were the eleven surviving Catalysts, sitting in the spare space at the front of the cutter, ocean water occasionally spraying up high enough to brush them, hot ocean sun beating down. 

Jake sat at the end of the group, slightly apart from the rest of them. In shock. In the space of six, seven hours, he'd lost his best friend and his wife. The man who'd put a bounty on his head was dead. And the whole world had been restored. Back - everything was back. No more lava-drenched nightmare. No more weird island time travel. 

Too many losses and gains to wrap his mind around in one shot, and all in less than half a day. 

Jake shook his head, looking out over the choppy water, snuffing out a breath, shaggy hair in his eyes. Everything was crowding in on him too fast. He remembered her face as she'd turned to them on that roof, the vortex spinning in the sky behind her. The smile on her face, which had somehow made sense to him. The near-nonsense words she'd spoken that had somehow made perfect sense to him. He'd almost known she was going to say them before she spoke them out loud, even. And he'd known exactly what she'd needed after she spoke, without knowing how he knew.

He'd wrapped his arms around her, braced her against the crystal on the Celestial's rooftop. He'd told her he'd get her where she needed to go, and even as he was saying it, knowing simply that she'd needed him to do it, he'd heard her say his name and felt something massive, something powerful surround him. 

She'd swept through him - literally like her self going right through the center of his self - and into that non-human thing. Like a water drop rejoining the sea. And, boom, no time to think or even breathe, they were all on the sand below the Celestial, and the whole world was back, and she was gone. Just like that. 

Jake had gotten on this cutter with the other survivors just a couple hours ago. And he'd gotten on here fully meaning to stick to what Princess wanted. To go home. To face things. Face Mike's family, face his own. Hell, he'd even felt cocky about it. Downright jolly, even. He'd wanted to see his family so much now - because knowing Princess had given him so much of his hope back.

But as Destination Reality grew closer, as the knowledge of them being front page news hit him, as the old lonely feeling settled in, the guilt and uncertainty weighed him down more and more. It was harder and harder to sit still. She was gone - but gone where? What was all this? 

He didn't understand it ... and he needed space to think it through. 

He stood up. Walked deftly toward the stern. The boat rocked, but he'd never had any problem on boats, had he? Boats were one thing that always made sense.

One of the few damn things in his whole entire life. 

Katniss glanced up as he passed. 

"I'm comin back," he said. 

"Jake?" Sounded like Captain America. 

"Gimme a minute," he said. 

He didn't look back. He knew without looking that they all wanted to stick together. Which ... of course that's what they wanted, after everything. And he was coming back. He was. He really just did need a minute to himself.

He passed fellow military everywhere, they were crawling every inch of the cutter, rigging and hoisting and moving around. Some of them glanced at him, and he'd nod back whenever they did.

Jake headed toward where he knew steps to belowdecks would be; he had been on more than one of these rigs before, and it was kinda comforting to be back aboard one. Familiar. Something that belonged to his old life, the life of Military Genius Jake. Crack Shot Jake. He missed that life, and there was no way he could ever go back, but was nice to be surrounded by something familiar.

The men on here had been patrolling for the missing college kids, but had been thrown and suspicious by what they'd found: not just missing college kids, but a famous rich asshole and a completely empty hotel, now collapsed and a smoking ruin. Jake took the lead when the military guys anchored and approached, and he'd made it all sound sane somehow (thy'd never asked about Princess, either, and he hadn't offered), but now that they were on the boat, he knew that the questions were going to keep coming, and they were only going to get harder from here.

He found the worn iron steps and slid quietly down them, toward the mess hall. Looking for space to be alone. Maybe booze too.

Lundgren was dead. Good riddance there. Mike was dead. He missed Mike like a motherfucker, but mourning was later. And Princess was gone, gone before she could finish talking, gone to somewhere he didn't understand. Back to Vaanu, the heart of the island. Which, okay, setting aside that he didn't quite grasp how Princess was a part of whatever Vaanu was ... what the hell was it, anyway? Clarity would be good. Vaanu was ... The thing that had formed the island, he knew that. The thing that possessed Quinn, he knew that too. The thing that had shown them the embers, that weird ghostly being - it was that too. All of those things together? And somehow now ... what? Out in space? Somewhere? 

He thought of that feeling of her sweeping through him - her smell and touch right in the center of his soul - and joining something impossibly huge. Planet-sized huge. Okay. So, sure. But specifically, where did that mean she was now? She'd been gone, but gone where? Was she beyond his reach now? 

He decided that thought could go fuck itself. Mike might be gone - undeniably gone, "body a smoking broken wreck" gone, fucking Christ don't think about it, there was time for that later - but she wasn't, not if he had any say on it. Whatever had happened, wherever she was, he'd find her.

A year and a day ... and then forever. He'd meant every single goddamn word. 

He wandered the hall, closed and locked doors to either side, completely alone. Alone was good - his head was clearing up already - but not enough.

He spotted a sign for the mess hall and followed it. There had to be booze in there somewhere.

All right, so he'd have to figure out where she went, how all this worked, and go after her. Which meant first finding a space where he could start from. Was that in the States now? With his family? He ached to see Rebecca and his folks - but what would that even look like? He wanted so much to talk to them - but what about the whole "traitor to his country" part? The men on this boat didn't know who he was yet - they'd been looking for the Hartfeld kids, not him - but how long before they figured it out? They'd called it in twenty minutes ago. Maybe ten more minutes, an hour, before they knew who he was. And then ... 

If what Princess had shown him would come true, he'd be exonerated. But could that even happen now? Now that Mike and Lundgren were both gone... 

Would he even be exonerated now? 

That thought scared him. As he headed toward the mess hall, that was the thought that scared him most. Who was going to back him up when the proverbial shit hit the fan? The Catalysts abovedecks? None of them had that power, not even Katniss or Malfoy, not even now - because all of their power had come from a magical island that was now ... just a chunk of rock in the ocean. 

All the magic of that island had gone when she did. And now both she and Mike were...

They were both...

He stopped in the middle of the hallway.

He was alone. In all the ways that mattered, he was alone. And he hadn't fully registered that until right now. 

He could run again. Maybe he'd need to. He might need to be ready to slip through security once they got home - to get on a ship headed the other way, or to steal a plane, to get out, to find some other tropical place, another warm beach. Or somewhere different - mountains, maybe. He could learn to ski. Skiing wasn't that hard. It was falling down a mountain on skinny rails. He could learn that easy while he figured a way back to her.

It felt like going backwards, back to who he had been. And it felt that way because that was exactly what it was. But it also felt smarter - running first was the safer solution, if he had the read on the situation right. Jail, the mistrust of his family, the sorrow of Mike's family (their son dead, now for a second time) and the overall guilt would kill him this time, especially knowing that while he was in jail she would be out there, somewhere, waiting for him to find her again, waiting his whole life maybe, as the college kids abovedecks tried and failed repeatedly to get him out. 

And all of a sudden he couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't plan. Because in all the ways that mattered, he was alone- 

Then he heard a beep from his pocket.

He blinked - he'd been really deep in his head there, earth to Jake - then reached down and pulled out his cell phone. La Huerta had zero cell phone coverage, he'd tossed it in his hotel room something like decades ago and he'd unconsciously grabbed it on his way to board the cutter. But they were back in cell phone range now - full bars - and he had a message.

A voicemail. From an unrecognized number.

Who the hell...?

He halfway thought about destroying it. It was a prehistoric phone - from, like, 2001, and he'd bought it used - just enough for him to function in Costa Rica. But now he'd have to ditch it. Should ditch it.

But he didn't.

Instead, he opened up the voicemail and put the phone to his ear.

"Jake. I'm standing on the roof next to you. I'm sending this from Deigo's phone. Hope this works right. I hope you get this. Time is frozen, but it's slipping. I don't have long, but I know you, and I know you need to hear this."

Her voice. It went through him, fire and ice, love and longing. It was her voice.

"This third choice - you're right, you'll lose me. I'll be going somewhere you can't follow. But I need to make this choice, Jake. It's right. It's the right choice. The future you saw will come true. Yours, and everyone's. So I'm going to do this. You'll be free. All of you will. You'll all be able to move on, the way you were always meant to. The way each of you saw in the Embers. And the whole world comes back. All timelines restored. Everything back where it should be.

"This also means you'll get what you wanted: your freedom and your friend. Because everything will be restored, that means the people that died will be too. Jake: Mike is back. Mike and Lundgren and Janine will all be back - I have to, Jake, this is the only way to do it, is all at once like this - but don't be scared. Trust me. Go home and testify. It'll still work. You'll be able to come home. See your sister. Your parents. I am giving you back your life.

"There's only one catch. You already know that too, you knew it when you saw it on my face. I'm not coming back."

His breath caught in his throat, he loved her so much he couldn't breathe. Her voice was so strong, unwavering. Filled with love.

"But I have to do this. I have to, Jake. It's what you need, it's the best answer. The Endless didn't want this, but she couldn't see any further than her love. Because she did love you - The Endless loved all of you. You were the family she - and I - wanted most in the world. You're the best family we could have ever hoped for. And the Endless wanted to stay with you. Protect you. Always be with you. She wanted it so badly she looped you through life and death two thousand times over. She was wrong to keep you trapped in those loops. She was wrong. That life was no life at all.

"And if I was just her, I'd make that same choice all over again. To keep you with me. But I'm not just her. She was the young version of me. Which means: I'm the old version of her. I've lived over two thousand lifetimes, and I've grown to see beyond her, grown to see fully where I came from.

"The Endless and I are the same, and we started as a tiny piece of Vaanu. That's what I needed to grow to accept. She was too young to understand, but I'm not. I'm the island itself. And the island is me. Once Vaanu crashed here, once it tore time and space apart and formed La Huerta, it couldn't leave. So it made me. But I was nothing on my own. Your love made me grow into everything I am now. The love from all of you. Vaanu must love something enough to let go of where it's trapped. So it built me for you guys. In exchange for that love. And it works. I make this choice now because I love you all too much to keep you."

She paused. A hitch in her breath.

Jake shook his head, the hitch in her voice echoing the thick feeling in his throat. He'd already known what she was saying, in the back of his head, in his gut instinct, he'd known all of this. How? Too much, too much for his head to wrap around ... and he didn't want to hear the rest of this, because part of him already knew something of what she was about to say, too. 

Don't say it, Princess, he pled silently, not even consciously knowing what "it" even was - but then she cleared her throat and the message went on. 

"So that's it. As best as I can explain it. That's the meat of what's happened here on this island. But I need to tell you something important, Jake, and I've told you all that just so I can tell you this:

"You are not going to look for me. I know you want to. I know you would cross all the stars in the universe to find me. But I'm gone. I was real, and I was with you, but only because you needed me to move forward. If you don't live your life from here, what I do now is pointless. So you have to listen to me right now and do exactly what I tell you. Okay? Don't you dare ever render my sacrifice meaningless. Don't you shut off again. Don't you run. And don't you stop opening up. Don't. You. Dare.

"I've left a separate message for the others, but I'm saying this directly to you because this means you have to listen to me. I want you to live your life. I'm in your heart and you're in mine, and we have to let that be enough. Know that I'm with you always. Everywhere you are, I'm with you, and everywhere I am, you're with me.

"I love you, Jacob Lucas McKenzie. You mean the world to me. The literal world. Now go and live."

The message clicked off and there was silence. Jake stood stock-still in the hallway. There had to be more.

He pulled the phone away from his ear. Clung to it, staring down at it, willing there to be more.

But there was no more.

He tried to think fast, but his thoughts were sludge. She loved him. She was literally built to love him. Them, all of them. She was the island itself. Which he'd known, been right about, how? And she was gone, completely gone. And she'd given him his life in exchange. And Mike. Mike! And his freedom. Everything he'd wanted.

But it wasn't what he wanted. He wanted her. The hot barely-legal coed who somehow understood all of time and space. What was the point of the rest of it without her?

But if this message he held in his hand was real, if what she said was real, then even though his heart was breaking...

"Goddammit, Princess," he said at last. "... Goddammit."

He needed a drink. He looked ahead at the door to the mess. He wanted to drown in gallons of alcohol.

He slipped into the mess hall, poked around, and found some vodka hidden in a little flask in back of one of the cupboards. As he pulled it out, he swigged straight from the bottle - it was the cheap stuff, practically rubbing alcohol. It burned going down. He relished the burn.

Then he sat straight down on one of the benches, pulled up his phone, and listened to the whole voicemail again.

He looked for a way to back it up, to save it, email it to himself, whatever. But his goddamn prehistoric phone wouldn't do anything but replay it. No iCloud, no magic Internet access. Little green bars on a 20 year old screen.

And it hit him: this was the other reason she'd sent it to him. Not just to make him hear her words, but because he knew what these words would do. What she'd walked him through in this voicemail couldn't get out to the wider world. She wanted him to trust her and to live.

And to erase this.

So. All right.

He stood up, pushing his hair out of his face. He couldn't follow everything, but he'd understood enough.

If she'd done this, if she made this choice, then he had to trust it. For her. And after all ... even if she was wrong, what was a little prison time after a voicemail like this one? Seemed smart to listen to an extraterrestrial spirit whose tiny sliver of soul had changed his whole damn life. If that was how it even worked. Who knew. But fuck it. Bring on the news cameras, the cuffs, the jail time, the court dates. Fuck it all. He'd listen to her, and he'd trust her. He'd surrender.

He took one last drink, not even bothering to put the bottle back - what was the American Coast Guard doing with vodka anyway, what red-blooded American doesn't have bourbon or beer?

He put the phone in his pocket and slipped back abovedecks.

He was just in time to see Diego discover Princess's other message - her loving, safely phrased message - and forward it on to everyone else. They all listened intently, Jake included. He didn't mention his own. It wasn't the first time in his life he'd kept secrets.

As the ship landed in Miami, as he planted his feet on US soil, as the La Huerta survivors exited straight into the news cameras, he held his phone tightly in his hand, never letting go for an instant. He answered reporters' questions as briefly as he could, and he never let go.

The La Huerta survivors managed to get a few moments to trade contact info with each other right in the middle of the crowd, and Jake ran anxious hands through his hair as they did, watching the crowd around them. Any minute now. Any minute now they'd find him.

He watched a reporter step away, look directly at Jake, and speak to a Scooby-Doo-villain guy in the crowd.

Jake moved, quiet as he could, from the other Catalysts, into a corner, and took one final moment to replay the message meant just for him, memorizing every word, holding on tight. "I love you, Jacob Lucas McKenzie." I love you too, he said, to the air. To no one.

Then he deleted it, and he wiped the phone.

By the time the cops cuffed him, right there in front of the cameras, he'd repeated her voicemail in his head dozens of times, making sure he had every word right.

His family came to see him when he was in holding. His folks, and Rebecca. And they were overjoyed to see him. His folks had never felt ashamed of him, and neither did his sister. He couldn't quite understand why they didn't, if he was being honest - he'd now let two people who mattered more than his own life die, right on his watch, and one of them twice. And that first time, he'd been a coward and he'd run. His folks shouldn't feel anything but shame. 

But they felt no shame, they said. Don't be ridiculous, Jake, they said. They loved him, they said, and they just wanted him home. And they had to tell him a bunch of times before it really registered in his head that they meant it. He couldn't look them in the eye, then, instead choosing to stare holes into the visiting room table. And before they left, they said that Mike had been asking for him - and Mike was being held in the same prison.

She'd done it. Mike was alive.

After they left, alone in his cell, Jake called out, but couldn't hear Mike call back. Of course not. Wherever Mike was, it was nowhere near Jake. But that didn't matter, because his best friend was alive.

Alive. 

He started to pace, reciting her voicemail out loud, reminding himself. She'd been right.

She'd been right.

He thought of one of their first moments together, climbing the control tower and seeing the Doppler lights. How those lights had been one of the most incredible things he'd ever seen in his life ... at least up to that point. How her hand had found his, like instinct, her fingers curling around his fingers. How much of a sign that was for things to come. And all the moments with her after that had topped that one, in adventure, in joy, in connection. In love. Even the shitty ones.

He curled up on the thin holding cell mattress and wept.

It took months before the trial happened, months by himself in a cell. The surviving Catalysts visited him, all of them at various points, bringing him news of the outer world - their new celebrity status, their new freedoms, their new lives. Things happened very quickly out in the rest of the world. Rourke was arrested, charged. Varyyn was able to come stay with Diego in London. Aleister and Grace married. Sean and Michelle got back together. Zahra started her band. Quinn started her charity. Estella went back home. Raj started his cooking show. Craig started making games.

They were all so happy, the other Catalysts. And they had every right to be. Princess had been right about all of it. 

In less than a year, he was finally in front of the judge, and it played out just the way he'd seen when he touched the helmet back on La Huerta. When Jake arrived in the courtroom, Mike was already there - still with the bionic eye, but now with the light in his eyes completely turned back on. They'd called to each other, the old nicknames, Mike's face flooded with relief. They'd grabbed each other in a hug, though they hadn't been allowed a long one. Less than fifteen minutes later, things played out exactly like he'd seen: his own nervous energy, Mike's faltering testimony - and the judge's decision. Jake felt dizzy from the deja vu.

And just like that, his trial was finished, Lundgren was sentenced, and Jake and Mike were found not guilty.

He was out of custody. He was free.

The second they told him, he wanted so badly to hold her. "I love you, Jacob Lucas McKenzie. You mean the world to me. The literal world. Now go and live."

In that second, he wanted nothing more than to get in whatever vehicle would shoot him out into space. Whatever allowed him to cross every single mile of creation. 

In that second, he would have traveled ten thousand lifetimes to find her.

The next day, he left holding and met Mike out front. It was the day before Rebecca came to pick him up and take him back to Pearl River and his folks, so they had a little time. He and Mike had dinner in a crappy diner a quarter mile from the courthouse.

Mike embraced him again once they were there, and they clapped each other on the back. Princess hung in the air, but neither of them spoke her name. Then Jake made a comment about Mike grabbing his ass, at which point they broke apart, laughing.

They sat at a torn up booth and ate shitty food. Jake cracked sarcastic jokes, just like the old days, and Mike replied in kind. They both laughed, a lot, and bought up a few rounds of drinks each. They shared jokes and shared the shock and relief together.

Then they recounted what they remembered from La Huerta, and Princess finally came up.

"Glad I got to be best man for you, Grandpa. Glad we at least had that."

"Me too. Christ. You remember how I always said I'd never be an army cliche? No girl was gonna tie me down? But if there ever was one, she was it. And I married her in every way I could, too. I'd've married her sideways and upside down if I could've."

Mike grinned. It was good to see - Jake hadn't seen that grin in years. "Love's made you soft, old man."

"Damn right it has. Soft in all the right places and hard in all the right ones. Cause I love her to the stars and back." It popped out, and just like that, he was back in the cabin in the snow, seeing the joy in her eyes when she said those same words, remembering his rush of relief and his own answer of joy.

Sadness settled on him, sadness and grief, thick and heavy.

Mike's hand reached out and weighed on Jake's shoulder. Jake looked up. It was an old gesture, one Jake never thought he'd feel again. 

He shook it off. Wasn't about to cry in a damn diner. 

"Tell me your story, youngun," Jake asked him. "Walk me though how you came back to life."

Mike twitched his mouth, and took a long time before speaking - then it all poured out in a rush. "It's fuzzy, old man. Confusing. Hard to articulate. I remember hurting like a sonofabitch - my back felt shattered in more than one place, and it was hard to breathe, like there was fluid in my lungs. I remember thinking, this is it. I've got hours, maybe. If I'm lucky. So screw it, I'm done with this. Done with what he put us both through, done with letting him dictate our lives. My own damn body. Done. I remember grabbing him, dousing him, then flying up toward the ceiling of that place, holding the bastard with everything I had. And then a lot more pain. And then I woke up back here. Just ... boom. Awake. And not fucked up. Mostly not fucked up, anyway; wasn't fatal anymore. Still had this new eye and everything. Weirdest thing - I was in an old apartment I used to have, and the apartment was full of things I'd lost. Like time had gone backwards, just in that one spot where I was."

Jake shook his head, his shaggy hair falling in his eyes. Amazing, what she'd done. The power of it.

"She brought you back, kid. She did that. I reckon it was the last thing she did as the person we knew. Brought you back cause I wanted it. She knew I needed ya."

Mike sat back, baffled. "How the hell could she've done that?"

Jake told him. All of it, everything she'd said. Through it all, Mike's eyes shone. When Jake was done, Mike shook his head.

"I guess I don't even have the words for all this," Mike said when he was done. "Makes a lot of sense, though. I was only there toward the end of this whole saga, but even i could see how much you guys all trusted her - and why. She seemed to know what to do no matter what we were facing. Guess now we know why that was."

"Yeah." He missed her the way he'd miss a limb. "I can't stop thinking about her. Hearing her voice. Remembering everything. She's on my mind all the time. All the goddamn time. It was like that when I thought you'd died. And that time, I fuckin ran, Mike. I ran as far away as I could to a warm beach and then I flew planes and I drank. And now you're alive and we're here and she's gone and she wants me to move on. After all that, just move on. I don't know what to do now. I don't know."

"Grandpa..." Mike looked like he didn't know how to respond. Jake just kept talking.

"She ain't human. I mean, she was real, but she wasn't fuckin human. She'd been built, invented, created, whatever, to be the perfect companion for all of us. To be what we all needed. And to fall in love with us herself. And then she died so we all could live. What the hell do I do with that? How do I deal with that? And why couldn't I have saved her from that?"

Mike leaned forward, like he wanted to touch Jake's shoulder again. Then leaned back, like he sensed Jake would break there and then if he did. Wanting to spare him public tears. And Jake knew it was the right call. Right then he felt as fragile as broken glass.

"I'll remember her along with you, Grandpa. None of us will forget her, ever. And, I mean, now we're out. We're free. She did that. And she did it for a reason."

Jake wondered what the hell the reason had even been, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, so he shut up.

He stayed in a shitty motel that night, provided by the state. He couldn't sleep, and kept looking out the window up at a dark sky drowning in city light. It was the first sky he'd seen since his long imprisonment.

He couldn't stop thinking of the whole of time and space, and how long that might take him to travel.

He left the hotel and wandered until he found a liquor store still open. He'd gotten all of his stuff back when they sprung him, including twenty whole bucks in his wallet. He used that to buy bottom-shelf whiskey and he walked in circles around his shitty motel parking lot, drinking it and looking at the stars until it was gone.

In the morning his old cell phone - searched and then wiped clean again by the government, the voicemail would have been theirs, thank God she'd known he'd be a cynical bastard about these things - was receiving texts and phone calls from the La Huerta survivors. They were checking in on him. They were glad he was out. He didn't know what to say back, other than that he was okay, and he was glad they were there, and also thanks.

Rebecca picked him up a few hours later and drove him back to his childhood home in Pearl River, where his folks were waiting. They took him in, gave him the spare back bedroom, just like when he'd been a kid. He bought a toothbrush the next day, some new clothes. Wandering a department store was surreal - he was pretty sure the last time he'd been in one was over half a decade ago. He'd always bought his clothes on base, and in Costa Rica he'd bought them from a sweet local island lady, and on La Huerta, there'd (weirdly) never been a shortage of anything if he really needed it - clothes, food, modes of transportation...

Weirdly. Ha. Right. Not weird at all, was it? Because that was what the island did, right? Give them what they needed? 

He realized he was staring blankly off at nothing. He left the store, hearing nothing but her voice in his ears.

"I love you, Jacob Lucas McKenzie. Now go and live."

He was glad that there was a liquor store nearby.

Next thing was a job. Baby steps back to a normal life. He wasted several days in that back bedroom doing Internet searches about astronaut programs. Some of them took former pilots.

But that wasn't what she'd asked. And that wasn't what she wanted. And the truth was ... he didn't trust himself with a plane right now.

He'd entered the military young and had always been drawn to planes, and he'd taken the first jobs he could in training that got him anywhere near one. He loved the freedom, the escape, the ability to leave the earth. It satisfied his desire for free and open space, his desire to run. And he'd expected that, once he was free, he'd immediately take that freedom in his hands again.

But a plane couldn't get him where he wanted to go. He'd need a rocket for that. A spaceship. And that was exactly what she'd asked him not to do.

What a plane could do was give him escape. He could run, and keep running, all around the world, anywhere he wanted to go. But there didn't seem to be any point to that. And it wasn't what she'd asked, either.

There was a final thing that a plane could do. It could crash. Take him out completely. Finally end all this. And truthfully, when he was younger, some part of him had loved that. There'd been joy in crashing planes and seeing if he'd survive it ... or not. 

But he didn't want that enough anymore to put the effort into it. And anyway ... she hadn't wanted that for him, either.

So. Running away wasn't the answer.

Finding her wasn't the answer.

Dying wasn't the answer.

He was goddamned if he knew what was. 

Frustrated, he spent a day just walking around the single street that was downtown Pearl River, completely unable to settle. He stopped in the Trackside Tavern, a bar he hadn't been in since sneaking in (and getting kicked out) at fifteen. They didn't kick him out now: they didn't even seem to remember him. So he bought a beer and kicked his feet up on a chair at a rickety table ... and then just brooded.

If anyone other than Princess had asked this of him, they'd have gotten a giant middle finger by now, and he'd be doing what he wanted to do, consequences be damned. 

But she'd asked. And she was the only one he'd do this for. He wouldn't even do this for Mike. Only for her.

After a few more days of angry aimlessness, he bought yet another bottle of whiskey, and after he was drunk enough he applied for a job as a security guard. And they took him - his resume was impressive, the Lundgren trial meant he was at least half-famous, and he interviewed well, still cocky and charming, even half buzzed and grief-stricken. They didn't even ask him to cut his hair - said it made him easier to recognize and it'd be good promotion for the store.

He was a damn celebrity. The thought amused him in passing, and he made a couple cynical remarks about American media, but that was it. The rest barely registered in his brain.

After he was hired, he spent his days patrolling various stores he was asked to protect, reciting her voicemail in his head.

He took to spending nearly all his free time in the Louisiana backwoods, fishing, camping, hiking, climbing. Drinking too, that was never far away. Rebecca flew over from LA and hung out with him, and they did beer pong and they roasted hot dogs and fished for crawdads, but it became clear over the course of a few days that they didn't have much in common anymore. And there was a lot he didn't feel like he could tell her. Even if she'd been able to listen, he had no idea where to start.

And besides: the fewer people that knew the truth about that island, the safer everyone was.

He sent her home with a hug and a promise to see her soon, but he didn't follow up on it.

A month later, he moved out of his parents' house and he and Mike moved in together. At first it was great, just like the old days. But eventually it was clear that with Mike it was the same as with Rebecca - they'd both seen too much, lost too much. And the more time they spent around each other, the more it became clear they were going two directions, and those two directions didn't line up.

Eventually the siren call of alcohol was the only thing left. Jake started spending all of his awake time drunk.

After a few months, he started flirting with women in the stores he worked security for and in the bars he frequented at night. He'd charm them and it took no effort at all: his sarcasm and his fame and his wounded heart appealed to far too many women looking for men they could fix. And it gave him relief from thinking about Princess for an hour or two or five.

He'd give them halfhearted nicknames - Pretty Backpack Girl, Barbie, Hot Goth Chick - and he'd try to get to know them. But he could never remember what any of them looked like the next day. Night after night, he'd miss the fireworks, the connection, the REALNESS of Princess. And morning after morning, he couldn't remember faces or even nicknames from the night before. Only hers. Only ever hers.

Mike saw it - Jake made no effort to hide it - and wasn't happy, but he gave Jake space.

Jake knew Mike was wrestling with his own demons. Part of him wished he was together enough to be there for Mike, whose bionic eye and limbs and complex PTSD were causing problems of their own. But he wasn't. He wasn't together at all.

"I love you, Jacob Lucas McKenzie." He replayed her voicemail back in his head, over and over. Replayed their times together in his head. Replayed her smile, her eyes. He worked hard to remember every word, every sensation, every look. The thick emotion when she told him she loved him in the tent outside MASADA. Her incredible beauty at the handfasting ceremony. The feel of that silk ribbon in his hands. The huge, huge smile on her face.

There was no traversing space. There was no getting her back. That wasn't what she'd wanted.

How could she have asked him not to follow? How could she have just left like that and then asked him not to find her? Didn't she know that it was the only thing he'd want to do? The only thing left he could even be good for anymore?

Hadn't she known him at all?

That thought - that maybe she hadn't really known him, and maybe he hadn't really known her - he squashed immediately. She'd been built to know him; she'd said so and the evidence backed it up. So there had to be a reason that she made this choice to be gone forever.

There had to be a reason that she'd left him behind and told him not to follow.

A few months more in to his slow spiraling out, Jake overslept at the house of a woman who he hadn't bothered to nickname. It was the third time he hadn't turned up to work when he was supposed to. He lost his security job. He came home late. And Mike blew up at him.

"What the hell are you doing to yourself, Grandpa?" Mike was in the middle of cooking up microwaved meals for the both of them, one scarred hand clutching a fork.

Jake, sitting on a stool near the fridge, gave Mike his old crooked, cocky grin; easy as a habit. "Mourning the love of my life. What's it look like?"

Mike shook his head. "Don't bullshit me, old man, we're all in mourning and none of us are blowing our lives up like this."

"Sorry, kid. I don't know how to live with this. I don't know how. Maybe she shouldn't have done it."

"What, saved you?"

"Yeah."

"She didn't just save you, you arrogant ass."

Jake had no response for that.

Mike looked him dead in the eye. "Start flying again."

"The only way I ever fly a plane again is to go find her."

"And you can't. Because she's gone."

Hearing the blunt reminder hurt. "On the money, Sherlock."

"Nicknames are my thing, Mission Impossible." Mike threw the fork in the sink with a clatter. "You have to stop this. This .. drowning, like this."

"Like it's easy."

"It's not easy but that doesn't mean you don't do it. And you have to or it'll kill you. And not to go all touchy feely but dammit, I need you, Grandpa."

Jake couldn't look Mike in the eye. Mike kept going.

"You hold on hard. You always have. And the world has a way of shaking you loose. Whether you like it or not. So learn to let go, man. Remember and love her, but let go."

Jake finally met Mike's eyes. "I'll burn the goddamn world down first, kid."

Mike shook his head. Before he left the room, he said "Sort your shit out, Jake."

That night, Jake dreamed she was disappearing again, touching the crystal, leaving right in front of him. He braced her, held her, against the sharp reflective glass, and she turned to sand in his hands, to dust, to nothing.

He found a new job a week later tending bar - they were hiring at the one he frequented most and he figured it gave him faster access to the booze. He'd done it before, years ago, tending bar. Back then it'd been for a classier joint, a place in the French Quarter that ordered hundred year old wine and two thousand dollar bourbon. But this bar? Ladies' nights and PBR. Half the bartenders showed up drunk, which gave Jake permission to do the same. And really, that was all he wanted.

Months passed that way. Every day he'd mix and pour for people who were addicted to escape, same as he was. Every night he'd come back to the house with Mike and pass out. Sometimes he brought women along. He didn't even bother to nickname any of them. Sometimes he'd see the flicker of disappointment in their faces when, at one point or another during the night, they'd realize he barely saw them. And he'd think: yeah. I'm sorry, darlin, but: yeah.

He and Mike barely spoke now.

Every once in a while, the surviving Catalysts would still check in, mainly through calls and texts. They were all far away, mainly on both coasts, and Jake was happy to keep them all that far away too. Seeing him like this ... he couldn't have stood it. But they kept trying, kept reaching out. They'd call and text him mainly to remember, to stay connected, to process. Jake found it was the only real connection he had left, these people who had known her, who had seen many of the same impossible things he'd seen - but now they were all moving on. Diego had a bestselling book. Grace was becoming a famous artist. Sean's football career was like a bullet shot into space. Ditto Raj's cooking show, Craig's games, Zahra's band, Quinn's charity. Kids were even being born. Houses bought.

Their lives were becoming amazing. He wished he was moving on with them. He didn't say that - but apparently he didn't have to, because they seemed to pick up on it, each of them, and they each tried to reach him in their own ways - Estella in her accurate but quiet way, Sean in his take-charge way, Diego in a commiserating way, Zahra in a rude-but-good-point way, each of them like that, making time for him like that. It all amounted to the same, though.

They all missed her too, they said. Every day, they said. Every minute. We replay her message for the group all the time, they said. They'd memorized it, they said. And he believed them, he did. He knew the impact that the island had had on them all better than anyone else could. 

But it was no contest between the way they missed her and the way he did. Not even close. 

He quit the bar job after six months and went camping without telling Mike where he was going. He just drove until he ran out of road, then hiked until he ran out of path, then set down his tent. It was on the shore of a lake, and the water reminded him of the time Princess swam with him in the cave.

He built a fire outside his tent, cooked an MRE (out of habit, mostly, and comfort) and remembered making love to her on the shore of that cave, the dancing light all around them, complimenting their own fireworks.

He lay back on the shore and looked up. He could see the stars from here. Winking, layered dots of light in a wide, wide dark. He wanted to get up there. That was where she was, somewhere out there. And he was a pilot. He was built for it. Flying into nothing was exactly what he did. And he loved her. Across all of time and space he loved her. He could find her. If only she'd asked. If only she'd said. If only she'd given him any sign at all.

He got majorly drunk after that, and stayed that way for several endless days, not eating, wandering in the woods, drinking a full gallon of Jim Beam, eventually climbing high up onto a bridge in the middle of nowhere, Louisiana, then jumping straight down into a deep deep river. In the water, far far down, he hit his leg on a rock, came up with blood all around him, fought his way through the current to shore. Halfway disappointed he hadn't drowned, he patched himself up on the bank, and remembered what she'd said after they'd ridden the cart in the mining tunnel. "A ride with Jake is rough, wild and fun as hell."

Jake began laughing wildly, sitting on that shore with his leg splayed out, soaking wet, shivering, drunk off his ass.

He built another new fire on that shore that night, and thought of her, and drank. And in the morning he found himself standing beside the ashes of the fire remembering the New Year's party they'd had at the Elysian Lodge, the dress she wore and the suit he'd had, the way he'd kissed her at midnight, the fire that had burned to ashes beside the beautiful bed they'd slept in. He'd found both suit and dress in one of the rooms, so perfect it was like they'd been built just for them; he'd kept the suit with him after that night, as they traveled, hoping to keep it nice. Hoping he could marry her in it. And when Varyyn told them about the handfasting ceremony, he knew he'd finally have his chance to keep her by his side for the rest of his life.

Standing over the ashes of his fire, Jake knelt down and buried the entire thing under rocks and shore dirt and sand.

He spent the morning using a tac knife to carve her name into a tree near the buried fire, and the words "YOU SAVED THE WORLD AND YOU SAVED ME AND YOU ARE NEVER FORGOTTEN" underneath. And then he walked back to his tent, packed up, and limped home.

It wasn't enough. He didn't know what would be enough. He couldn't forget her or stop loving her or wanting her. He couldn't live, and he couldn't let go. He was stuck. And he was kinda thinking, by now, that he even want to shake loose.

"You mean the world to me. The literal world."

Me too, he thought. You mean that to me too, you know?

When he came home, Mike said he'd had enough, and they needed a break from each other. Jake got another job, in a warehouse this time. In a few months, they paid out their lease and moved apart. Jake lived alone in a trailer just outside Pearl River for a full year. He didn't clean his place, barely washed himself. A shaggy, lumbering zombie. He worked just enough to pay the bills and spent all the rest of his time drinking, wandering, rarely speaking to anyone, spinning around his same old thoughts, haunted, wordless, closed off, and always, always missing her.

That was when it happened.

Four years and six months after they'd left the island, Jake got calls and texts from the survivors about what to do. Questions too: they knew how he felt, but would he? And he said: Yeah. Yeah he would. Absolutely. Because they'd asked. And because of the reason they gave him. 

He reached out to Mike, who immediately said yeah. Of course. And six months after that, he and Mike flew down to Costa Rica, which was exactly the same as when he'd left it. And from there, he rented them all a small Cessna, helped them (and some new babies) aboard, and, for the second time in his life, flew all of them to La Huerta. 

He kicked his shoes up on the dash halfway through, just for a bit, and watched the sky. It came back to him so fast, flying. It felt natural as breathing. It felt like coming home. 

The Catalysts, the La Huerta survivors, the people who all considered him a friend even though he'd essentially clocked out of his whole life, the only other people in existence who'd been where he'd been: each of them seemed to happy to see him in their own ways. And, aside from Mike, they all looked so different now, each future now come fully true just like she'd said. Jake was the only one of them who looked mostly the same - thinner, hair to his shoulders, deep shadows under his eyes, but still mostly the same. But they looked great, all of them did. Aside from texts and calls, he hadn't spent time with any of them in five years, but now it he couldn't ignore how much they'd all changed. 

They weren't college kids anymore. They were all remarkable, fully grown adults. 

And it was because of her that they were that way. 

Together, they stayed in the Celestial - now up under new ownership, like a regular hotel now, completely repaired and redone and unrecognizable, nothing like the Celestial of before - and they bought out the cheap rooms on the bottom floor.

A day later, after a huge feast (made by TacoNinja, who else), they toasted her memory on the same beach that she'd long ago left. The drinks were the same ones they'd had in this same place so long ago. Jake sat between Katnis and Pop Culture Petey (his nickname game was coming back strong, God he'd missed it) as they all raised their glasses to her, and he raised his own up high, emotions fighting for dominance in his broken lost heart.

He stayed on that beach a long time after the rest of them had returned to the hotel. He cracked open a small fifth of whiskey, still buzzed from the earlier toasts. He drank it slow, watching the sunrise emerging from the melted sea.

An hour after sun cleared the flat ocean horizon, he spoke aloud.

"My turn, Princess," he said. "You talked plenty in that voicemail, and now it's my turn. I love you too, I always will. You're always in my heart. You hear me? Every day I want to do what you asked me not to. To find you. Or travel back in time again somehow, stop you from even having to make the fuckin choice in the first place. Because you can't be gone. You may not be here but that can't mean you're gone. I refuse to accept that. I refuse. Sacrificing yourself for us is all noble and everything but I'd rather have you here. In our little house on the island, with the stone path, the wind chimes, the silk sheets on the bed. Having my folks back, Rebecca, Mike, all these other weirdoes, it's great, don't get me wrong. But it ain't the same. You're missing from this picture-perfect postcard. You always will be. And you're the essential part. I need you. I know you asked me to move on, but I can't. I can't."

And then.

Then.

He felt her sitting next to him, wrapping her arms around him. Just for a second. He could swear it. He could swear it on everything.

He sat very still, not daring to even breathe. Was that...? Had he really felt...?

Had that been wishful thinking? Had he wanted it badly enough to outright hallucinate?

Or had he really felt-

Then a thought came to him, unbidden: everything in its own time.

It wasn't his thought. It hadn't come from his head. But the second he thought it, he knew what the words meant: he'd taken all this time to mourn her, and to come to terms with what she'd said in that voicemail, and all this time had been important because it had brought him here, to say these words he'd just said out loud. And now ... now what?

Now there was something he needed to understand.

One more thought that wasn't from his head, this time just one very strong memory: when she'd sat with him in the swamp that looked just like home, after he'd saved her from lava and pulled her through a portal, after they'd rested. When it was time to move on. In that place, the place that looked like home, he'd stood, and offered her his hand, and said "Tempus sure does fugit." 

And with that, the thoughts that weren't his, and the sensation of her touch, were gone. And he was alone.

He stayed sitting still like that, long after the buzz from the whiskey started to fade, waiting, wishing. Begging. Please God. Please. Let her come back. Give her back. Please. I'll do whatever I need to, whatever I have to, whatever you want, anything, just please. Please. 

The sun rose to high over his head. The waves rolled in and out. Finally, he moved: he eased pressure off the balls of his feet. When he did, the last strains of the old La Huerta magic finally shattered.

And he felt them go.

He was alone. And she was gone. Completely, totally, absolutely, and without question. Gone.

He began to weep. Quiet sobbing. He ran a hand through his hair, clung to the bottle, and wept. Gradually, the tears stopped, and the silence came back. And now ... He knew it now, and it was a thought from his own head, not someone else's, and it was completely clear.

She wasn't coming back. He couldn't get her back. It was over. This was how it was going to stay. No matter how much he punished himself for losing her. No matter how much he dreamed of looking for her. No matter how far he was willing to go. Nothing could change this. This was what she had done for him. This was the choice she had made. This was what she'd wanted.

And he was wasting it.

The buzz from the whiskey was pretty much gone. The only sound was the sound of the waves. He could hear the rocks rolling in the surf. Hear the seagulls overhead. He could feel the weight of all the years that had formed La Huerta, and the weight of the loneliness around him now.

He set down the empty bottle.

"All right," he said. To the air. To no one. To himself. To history. To her memory. "Okay. I can't accept you're gone, but I can accept the choice you made. And I do. I swear I do. I'll listen. I'll live."

He got up. Sand clung to him. The salt air clung to his skin. The island felt like a part of him, and he felt like a part of it.

"I love you. Rest of my life. Every goddamn day. I'm in your heart and you're in mine. Always. And thank you. All right? Thank you. For my life."

The waves rolled in and out. The seagulls swooped. The clouds drifted, white and fluffy, across the sky.

He nodded.

All right. 

All right. It was time. 

He turned away. He left the beach. He returned to the hotel, to the other survivors. His friends. Less than twenty-four hours later, he went back home.

A couple months later, he applied to renew his license. He passed the review with flying colors, both the ground and air tests. And once again it was like coming home, it really was. That feeling of leaving the earth. There was joy in it.

And he opened back up to Mike. Then the survivors - Sean, Diego, Quinn, Michelle, Grace, Raj, Estella, Varyyn, Craig, Zahra, Alister. Then Rebecca, who he stumblingly tried to explain things to ... and once he started he couldn't stop. And who, when he was done, told him she'd keep his secrets, because she loved him, and she hoped he'd always feel like he could tell her things, and goddamn it she was so glad he was alive and free and here. 

He stopped running from their love - and they were waiting, all of them, ready, with their arms wide open. Aside from Rebecca, everyone else understood why he'd needed that time to grieve, because they themselves knew what she had been, and what she had done for them.

For all of them. And not one of them ever went a day without thinking about it, and missing her - and trying to live their lives as fully as possible. The gift she had given them.

Jake lived out his life among these people. His friends and family. And while he let go of the idea of getting her back, she remained the deepest, most important part of him, for the rest of his remaining time on earth.


End file.
